Southern Living in the Round

In a South Carolina island community, a retired Wall Street executive aims to create a gathering spot for friends and visitors

By

Candace Jackson

March 7, 2013 10:12 p.m. ET

Bluffton, S.C.

John Howard's three-building compound started with a table.

The retired Wall Street executive knew he wanted a large circular gathering spot, and he knew he wanted it to anchor a central great room in his planned vacation home in Palmetto Bluff, a sea-island community about 40 minutes north of Savannah, Ga. His architect, Geoffrey Bray, took the circle theme and ran with it, arranging the entire complex around a perfectly circular pebble driveway with a magnolia tree in its center.

Coming Full Circle

John Howard, a retired Wall Street executive, wanted a large circular gathering spot to anchor his planned vacation home in Palmetto Bluff, a master-planned island community about 40 minutes north of Savannah, Ga. His architect, Geoffrey Bray, took the circle theme and ran with it. Brie Williams for The Wall Street Journal

Painstakingly detailed geometry permeates the property's design. The compound's three buildings—a 3,500-square-foot three-bedroom, three-bath main house; a 2,500-square-foot three-bedroom, two-bath guest cottage; and a two-car garage with a pergola—all have curved front walls and some curved interior walls. Curved front porches, overlooking the rotunda driveway, have several pairs of green wooden rocking chairs.

Inside the main house, visitors are greeted by the great room, which has vaulted ceilings three stories up, with a gallery overlooking it on the second floor. It is configured into a living room, dining room and game room adjacent to a screened-in porch. Completing the main floor is the kitchen and a large master suite that includes a large dressing room, bedroom and bathroom. Upstairs there is an office and a guest bedroom.

The interior has a muted color palette with a mix of contemporary and antique furnishings. Two large limestone fireplaces anchor the space around the circular dining table. There are big timber ceiling beams; antique-replica ceiling fans with mahogany blades resemble boat paddles. Pops of coral and aqua hues appear in pillows, rug and artwork.

"I like to bring colors into the space in ways that you can change them," says Wendy Kirkland, the interior designer. One thing she tried to talk Mr. Howard out of was a large pool table in the great room: The compromise was a 120-year-old table with soft pea-colored felt. "I wanted something everyone could do, aside from sitting around looking at each other," Mr. Howard explains. (Ms. Kirkland says she likes the look of it now.)

Mr. Howard spent $500,000 on the lot and about $2 million constructing the home, which was completed in 2011. Previously constructed homes in Palmetto Bluff generally range in price from the high-$600,000's for small cottages near the town center to over $3.5 million for larger homes near the water. A 5,100-square-foot home with five bedrooms and six bathrooms near Mr. Howard's is currently on the market for $1.975 million.

A divorced father of two adult children, Mr. Howard, 58, says he built the place with visitors and long-term guests in mind, with ample gathering spaces, including one in the large kitchen where everyone can congregate while he makes dinner. There's a fire pit in the backyard for evening cigars and drinks. Personal touches bring his roots into his Southern home. A formal painting of Mr. Howard's grandfather, the head of a Connecticut bank in the 1950s, hangs in the hallway leading upstairs in the main house. There are also light fixtures and an antique music box from his late parents' house.

"My parents contemplated buying a place in the South and never pulled the trigger," Mr. Howard said. "I didn't want to do that."

Southern and lowcountry architectural building styles are dictated by the parameters of the gated community, which is filled with tall live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. W. Bryan Byrne, Palmetto Bluff's broker-in-charge, says the rules are intended to ensure the island's architecture maintains a traditional, Southern look and that residents don't build homes too large.

A longtime New Englander, Mr. Howard spent most of his career in the New York and Hartford offices of investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, retiring in 2011. "I have never missed investment banking," he said on a recent drizzly afternoon. He now spends about four months a year at Palmetto Bluff, spending the balance of his time in a Connecticut townhouse.

Mr. Howard stumbled upon his Southern second home while reading about the 20,000-acre sea island in a golf magazine in 2005. He decided to make a last-minute side trip from a business meeting in Atlanta to check it out and ended up buying the 2-acre lot. He hired Mr. Bray, an architect from his Connecticut hometown of New Britain, to handle the design, and Ms. Kirkland from West Simsbury, Conn., to handle the interiors. He had known both of them since childhood; their parents attended the same country club.

As a result of its strict architectural rules, Palmetto Bluff is a sprawling, low-density, master-planned community. Homes appear to have been built a generation ago, even though the community's first phase opened in 2004. Many residents get around by bike or golf cart.

"When I'm here, I'm in a bubble that's away from everything," Mr. Howard said. "And I like the bubble."

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